The present invention generally pertains to identity verification systems. More specifically, the present invention pertains to biometric security systems that provide an enhanced defense against fraudulent use of an individual's identity to complete a transaction.
Within a typical biometric security system, there are at least two operations, enrollment and verification. The operation of enrollment encompasses the original sampling of a person's biographic and biometric information, confirmation of the identity and its owner, and the creation and storage of a biometric template associated with the identity (a.k.a., an enrollment template) that is a data representation of the original sampling. The operation of verification includes an invocation of a biometric sample for the identification of a system user through comparison of a data representation of the biometric sample with one or more stored enrollment templates.
Biometric information is, by nature, reasonably public knowledge. A person's biometric data is often casually left behind or is easily seen and captured. This is true for all forms of biometric data including, but not limited to, fingerprints, iris features, facial features, and voice information. As an example, consider two friends meeting. The one friend recognizes the other by their face and other visible key characteristics. That information is public knowledge. However, a photo of that same person ‘is’ not that person. This issue similarly applies, electronically, to computer-based biometric authentication wherein a copy of authorized biometric information is susceptible to being submitted as a representation of the corresponding original information. In the context of biometric security applications, what is important, what enables a secure verification, is a unique and trusted invocation of an authorized biometric.